


The Long Road Home

by azurefishnets



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Bonds beyond love, Gen, Living symbols learning to be at least partly mortal, M/M, but love is also good, learning to accept both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 22:37:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17775524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azurefishnets/pseuds/azurefishnets
Summary: Home awaits, but what is time to the Scribes' Heralds? They have journeyed long but the end of the road can wait as long as necessary.





	The Long Road Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts).



Starshine and moonlight intertwined in their veins, the ancient harmonies slipping sweetly together and apart like lover’s hands, one against the other. By the Scribes’ grace they manifested in perfect, peerless beauty, unchanging through the ages. They had worked together in tandem, ever opposite, ever separated save for those too-brief moments together at every star’s turn. What was between them was not friendship, nor even love. Such transient words failed to encompass the intimacy of what they were and had been to each other for eons.

Morning and evening, melody and harmony, acceptance and denial, grace and determination—they had known who they were as living dual symbols of the Scribes’ will. With the Rites ended, they were the aimless ones, without even the consolations a triumvirate had to make such a lifestyle worth the effort. Two were no braid, to be held together by the strengths of the other in the trio. Two could only cling to each other and hold tight as they were buffeted by the vagaries of the world or be broken apart.

The months after the Rites ended were an adjustment. The sun was cast adrift, the moon faithfully by her side rather than roving, only to be seen once upon a stars’ turn. Each night they stared into the abyss of infinity, softly strumming their instruments as they searched the skies for any sign from the Scribes as to their way home. Each morning they began the day with a soft hymn to the Scribes and made polite conversation as they travelled.

_“You’re eating again, Tariq?”_

_“I… suppose I got used to it, in my time with the Nightwings.”_

_“It was only a handspan of days ago that you ate last. Are you sure you are not over-indulgent?”_

_“Aye, perhaps so, Celeste. I shall refrain if it bothers you so.”_

So began the 1248th morning since the end of the Rites, a time in which Celeste would normally only have seen Tariq a handful of times and been left to guard her post again, happier in her solitude for the brief time spent in the pale light of his presence. Now they wandered together, connected by ties that had never seemed more binding. She was tired beyond exhaustion, a torpor that threatened to sink her with every step and each note strummed on a dusty mandolin. Their long journey would have been wearisome to a mortal. Celeste had thought herself beyond such petty weakness, but she seemed to sink in on herself a little more with every passing dawn, the day’s light revealing her as a pallid and waning shadow of the brilliant being she had been atop Mount Alodiel.

Tariq, as ever in contrast, seemed to wax more effulgent with every step and every passing evening. He had always thrived on travel and this journey appeared no exception. He seemed, to Celeste’s weary ears, to speak incessantly, never pausing to contemplate. Her days had once been spent with only her own music to light the passing moments. Now it was a constant interplay, a never-ending torrent of inconsequentialities that had little importance or meaning.

_“Celeste, do you see that mountain far yonder? I believe we will find our next path there. And it appears, for now, the rain has stopped."  
_

_“Aye, Tariq, so you have said. Several times, in fact.”_

_“Have I, indeed? My apologies, Celeste. I only fear that we shall go astray.”_

She knew he worried about her, in his vaguely solicitous fashion, but in truth, it was Tariq himself that needed the worry. He seemed a being possessed, no longer the soul she had known.  His mind, even when it should be attendant to their journey home, appeared preoccupied. She had tried a few times to speak to him of it. Did she not know his every thought without the need for speech? And yet some things were better said aloud, brought to light.

_“Tariq. Come sit with me.”_

_“Nay, Celeste, we must press on. The mountain looms ever closer; we shall be home soon.”_

_“Soon or late, we shall go home. What are a few moments spared now?”_

_“Ah, Celeste, you speak the truth as ever. But by your leave, let us continue, for I am anxious to see our brethren.”_

The stars had seemed ever-present. Even a herald of the Scribes could know that it could not always be so, but their long search for their brethren seemed no closer to its destination than it had that first day of their journey. The sky seemed far and distant, a void that had no songs left within it save the howling of the celestial remnants of long-defeated Titans. Celeste had begun to believe that their journey would far outlast the lives of the denizens of the world. They would travel forever, their voyage to the stars as much symbol as their own existence. For the first time, she was unsure if that thought was hateful. She had never resisted her purpose. It was Tariq that had had the edge of rebellion in him, the slightest of pushback against the Scribes’ aims. And now, as he changed, so did she.

Through the cities and towns, the wildernesses and mountains of the new-made Sahrian Union, they had traveled without ceasing, and Celeste could feel the humanity encroaching. For the first time, she took note of the smell of Tariq’s infrequent meals, than of Tariq himself, a slightly musky, sharp-cinnamon smell tinged with dust, like that of old books. She supposed she smelled much the same. After that, it was more and more difficult to avoid that sense. She, at last, succumbed to curiosity and tried a meal, which was unpleasant from start to finish. She resolved to avoid that aspect of existence for as long as possible.

_“You do not care for your food, Celeste?”_

_“Nay, Tariq, I do not care for this experience in the least.”_

_“I wish you had had the experience of Hedwyn’s food. It was much more dreadful than this.”_

_“You would wish that on me?”_

_“Aye, it became one of my chiefest pleasures to eat with the Nightwings. That is what I wish you could have enjoyed.”_

_“I do not understand. You relished this terrible sensory experience?”_

_“I relished their company. I suppose you do not miss them.”_

_“Nay, Tariq, not particularly. I only knew them through your eyes.”_

_“That is a great pity, Celeste.”_

On the 3720th day of their journey, Tariq at last went silent in both thought and word, although his radiance flared around him with shocking immediacy. Celeste was drawn out of her own thoughts to glance sharply at him. They had found themselves in the new Union capital, yet one more stop in their endless peregrination. Heavily draped and cloaked against the stares of the curious, they were as unobtrusive in the crowds as they were like to get, and yet Tariq stared moon-struck at the small group on the opposite street-corner. Almost reverentially, he took off his hat, letting his pale hair billow free in the breeze.

Celeste followed his gaze. A Sap and a small, fluttering figure stood on the opposite street corner, staring back at Tariq as if transfixed. After a moment, she recognized them. All the inhabitants of this world still tended to look alike, but she remembered this pair. Volfred Sandalwood and the wise drive-imp Ti’zo, taking a stroll through the city it seemed. They, as well, appeared to remember them. With a blip, Volfred disappeared from his spot on the opposite corner and reappeared next to Tariq. Ti’zo zoomed across the street with scarcely less leisure, throwing himself into Tariq’s arms. Tariq dropped his hat, but his eyes never left Volfred’s face.

“Tariq! Can that truly be you? I thought never to see you again.” The Sap reached out to embrace him, but drew uncertainly back at the sight of Tariq’s face, frozen in incomprehension.

Tariq, for the first time in Celeste’s experience, looked stunned, completely cast adrift by this happenstance of fate. She had thought it impossible for him to be at a loss for words. His thoughts, however, flooded her own before she had the presence of mind to block them out. At last, she understood his strange preoccupation in these many days of journeying, his insistence on small talk but never true conversation, his inability to remain still. He had been hiding this from her with everything he had.

When Tariq spoke, it was in the same measured cadence he always had. Perhaps only Celeste would have noticed the slight tremor in his voice. “Volfred, sir. It is indeed a pleasure to see you again as well.”

The Sap chuckled, low and deep. “As ever, Tariq, you are a master of understatement. I… believed you lost to us.” His smile was small, more subdued in the face of Tariq’s restraint, superciliousness temporarily abandoned.

Ti’zo, having snuggled into Tariq’s unnoticing embrace, shared a glance with Celeste. She could see in his eyes and by his own demeanor that he, too, was taking note of the careful dance of word and gesture happening on this street corner.

Tariq’s thoughts hammered against Celeste’s. He longed for more. He longed to escape. He had hoped never to be in this situation again, yet he was overjoyed to see Volfred. At last, stiffly, he put out a hand, carefully releasing Ti’zo from his frozen grasp. “It was not my intention to see you again, Volfred, sir. Or indeed, Ti’zo, you either, although you must forgive me my coldness. Celeste and I must resume our journey home. Our search must continue. Nevertheless, I… I hope you remember me with fondness.”

The Sap reached out his hand and clasped Tariq’s forearm. Celeste could feel Tariq’s thoughts with a particular clarity as he slid his fingers against the warm pliant wood of Volfred’s own hand, his long and delicate fingertips catching the whorls and knots in Volfred’s wooden skin. They lingered, holding on for just a moment longer than Sahrian propriety dictated. Tariq’s joy at the touch and his sorrow at this unexpected meeting and parting flooded her senses.

Volfred let go at last, his voice raw with regret. “I have read many words, Tariq. Many, many words since last I saw you, and yet you were the words I never once understood, although I wished to.”

Tariq smiled faintly as his hand fell to his side. “Volfred, sir, I have ever been an open book to you.”

As they turned away from each other, Celeste stole a glance at Volfred. He looked stricken, slumped and wilting, the abrupt dismissal clearly a puzzle with no kind answer. He had picked up Tariq's forgotten hat and was turning it around and around in his hands. Ti’zo crooned softly to him and yet again met eyes with Celeste. The little imp’s look of mute appeal stayed with her as they left the city and resumed their journey.

4232 days into their journey, Celeste had had enough. Tariq had been frustrating before—now he was intolerable. He was by turns manic and mopey, rushing them along the road one day and sitting still and despondent the next, light dimmed to a mere glimmer for days on end. His stillness was no longer the comfort she had thought it would be.

_“Tariq, would you care for a meal?”_

_“Nay, Celeste, I do not care for the taste any longer.”_

_“Then shall we begin our journey again?”_

In response, he reached for his lute, strumming a tune that included deep notes and occasional drum-like tapping on the body of the lute, a melody redolent with nostalgia for a plan masterfully executed. Celeste could only sigh and sit next to him, leaning her head against his shoulder as he played.

_“Tariq, enough is enough.”_

_“I cannot pretend to know what you mean.”_

_“By the Scribes, Tariq, you are my own other half and you attempt to lie to me?”_

His eyes dropped, shame radiating from him.

_“I ask your pardon. It was not my attention to ever have this conversation with you.”_

_“You love him. The Sap.”_

_“Aye, Celeste, I believe I feel something of that emotion the beings of this world call love.”_

_“Do not dissemble, please. You fear to be with him?”_

_“Nay, Celeste, but I could not leave you. And… I can feel that he shall never be truly comfortable with me.”_

_“You are a fool, Tariq. That should not stop you. Such a connection is unheard of. We exist to collect knowledge in all its forms. All the more reason to explore such a thing... although I admit I do not understand your fascination with the physical aspects of mortality.”_

_“Nay, we have a journey to undertake. Home awaits.”_

_“Home has awaited and shall await for as long as we live, as shall I. The prison of this world is transitory to those such as we. And I am afraid even such a long-lived creature as your Sap may not outlast our light.”_

Tariq bowed his head, strumming his lute idly. At last, he spoke, his words somehow more wistful and yet more portentous for the echoes they left on the air.

“Do you truly believe that ones such as we may love the beings of this world?”

Celeste searched his face. It felt like the whole of reality was leaning forward, holding its breath for her pronouncement.

“If beings such as we can love mortals, even for a time, it is time to find that out for ourselves.”

Far above, too faint to be seen by the human eye, the first returning star flickered back into life. They both felt it, the tiny faint echo of its newborn song thrilling through the air. Celeste felt her own light returning, the gleam of her own individual radiance returning stronger by the second.

“It seems the Scribes have spoken.” Tariq said at last, voice tinged with awe.

Celeste stood.

_“Go, Tariq. Seek out this knowledge. I shall continue to look for our way home.”_

_“Goodbye, Celeste.”_

_“Never goodbye. Say only—until we shall meet again.”_

He turned away, to begin the long solitary journey back to the city. Celeste pulled out her mandolin, to strum him a walking song. He, in turn, unslung his lute, and played her one, as ever in tandem. They walked, as always on opposite journeys, yet immortal in concord no matter how far from each other they might be.

**Author's Note:**

> Celeste & Tariq: something completely alien set at any point before the ending, showing how inhuman they both are (but maybe Tariq picked up /something/ during his travels?) or, on the contrary, figuring out humanity as they travel together as a mysterious indie duo? 
> 
> Volfred/Tariq: All I know is Tariq of all people fell and fell hard - he makes it sound like Volfred is the biggest deal ever and he’s some servant… but he’s the herald and Volfred is actually some dude who got kicked Downside (albeit a particularly charismatic and idealistic dude). And I like this dual imbalance very much. What happened in the woods during Volfred’s self-imposed exile? Or do they find each other again after the ending, in the Union? If you want to lean on how alien Tariq is and/or how tree Volfred is, please do!
> 
> I thought I'd give combining these two prompts a try. I can only hope it matches even a little with your expectations! Happy Chocobox!


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